• Question: What happens if the ozone suddenly disappears? Will we all die very fast? Or will the trees take all the CO2 and make oxygen and people will live?

    Asked by Alexthepurplemonkey to Brian on 1 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Brian OConnor

      Brian OConnor answered on 1 Mar 2019:


      Ok so you’ve asked two questions here – the first about ozone and its link to human health and the second about carbon dioxide (CO2), trees and people! I’ll answer them separately since they are not directly connected.
      (i) if the ozone suddenly disappears then we would all probably get the worst sunburn you can imagine and then our eyes would hurt a lot because ultraviolet radiation from the sun, which is way brighter than normal sunshine and is normally blocked by ozone, would probably blind us! After the sunburn we would probably develop skin cancer and then also be blind. So yes the ozone is very important for our survival and we would probably die within a few weeks or months without it!
      (ii) So carbon dioxide (CO2) is a friend to ozone because it can help the ozone layer thicken but it depends where you are in the world or how high up in space the CO2 is. But the trees would never take all the CO2 because there is too much of it in the atmosphere and the entire Earth would need to be covered in trees to absorb all the CO2. So even though trees need CO2 to make oxygen for humans to breathe, there is not enough of them to help us live in the long term. I’m afraid there is too much CO2 in the atmosphere!

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